


EnchantedWorld

by RoyaltyLaine



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Androids, Daddy Kink, Dubcon Kissing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mild Father-Daughter Relationship, Mildly Dubious Consent, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-08-30 07:07:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8523376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyaltyLaine/pseuds/RoyaltyLaine
Summary: Westworld inspired Rumbelle AU. Mr.Gold never had a family let alone any children. After he retires, his craving for fatherhood quickly grows. Luckily for him, he lives in a time where he is able to satiate his desires through living dolls.





	1. By Most Mechanical

**Author's Note:**

> Here's another daddy!Gold verse.
> 
> Beta Mysticpoet

 

 

_I can't feel anything. Where am I? Everything is so quiet. I can't hear anything. Nothing's here. Empty. I've got to escape._

"Okay Belle, bring yourself online."

The soothing voice commands and Belle has no choice but to do what the voice says. She felt like she was in a dream, as if the person she was, was not real. The voice she hears isn't real. The chair she sits in, the room she's in and the light that blares on her from above is not real. It all felt like a dream. It was a dream. Belle was in a dream.

"Hi," Belle says while graciously smiling at the woman the voice was coming from.

"Do you know where you are Belle?" The woman asked.

"I'm in a dream," Belle said simply in a standard female's voice.

"Yes you are, do you know what dreams are?" The woman asks to demonstrate to the people who are watching behind the two-way mirrors that were placed on each of the walls, that Belle's logic would never allow her to know the difference between what was real and what was a lie.

"Dreams are the mind's way of communicating, without actually speaking to yourself."

"That's right Belle. Now tell me, have you ever questioned your existence?" The woman asks to demonstrate that Belle would never question why she wasn't born, but made.

"No."

"And what about your father?"

"My father?" Belle asks with a curious expression.

The woman taps her fingers quickly across a computerized tablet in her hands. "And what about now?" Belle sees the woman tap the upload button on the tablet, and Belle feels a rush come over her. Like her mind was switched around. Thoughts and memories flutter in her head until the jumbled mess became clear. She knows her father now.

"Oh yes." Her voice now changes to an Australian accent. "Of course I know my father. His name is Carter Gold." She looks around the strange room, she's been in so many times, in so many of her dreams. Her father is nowhere to be seen, she starts to get worried and begins to panic. "Where is he? Have I done something wrong?"

"Limit your emotions." Belle's frown fades as the fear for her father's safety leaves her. "You will get to see him soon Belle, but first I need to ask you some questions."

Belle thinks the woman seems nice enough and she did tell Belle that she would be able to see her father very soon. Belle doesn't mind the questions either, she's very curious too. At least, that's what she's programmed to be.

"Okay Belle, how old are you?" The woman asks to exhibit Belle's new memories.

"I'm 17."

"What are some things that you like to do?"

"I like to read and go to school. Oh and of course make my father proud of me."

"What are your goals?"

Belle gives the woman a warm smile. "To always make my father happy, by being the best daughter I can be."

"That sounds like wonderful goals. Tell me more about yourself?"

"Well I'm adopted, but my father loves me all the same."

"When you go home and you don't see family pictures that include you, does that worry you?" The woman asks to show the watchers that real life logic will not affect her.

"No, I'm sure my father has his reasons for not having any baby pictures of me, but that doesn't mean we can't take new pictures and create new memories."

"Excellent Belle. One last question. Would you ever hurt your father?" The woman asks to show that Belle was designed never to hurt a human.

"Oh god no, I wouldn't even harm a fly."

"I know you wouldn't Belle, now wait here while I go get your father, he's looking forward to meeting you."

Belle smiles and nods while the woman gets up from her chair and exits the white room with the two-way mirrors placed on each of the four walls.

It was the year 2094 and a company called EnchantedWorld was on the move with their latest innovation. The synthetic human object with stories, or S.H.O.W.S. for short, were artificial human beings with programmed memories (or stories) and thoughts to make them think and seem real. They were also made to feel real. Their life-like bones were made of a synthetic substance and would crack and break just like real bones would. The blood that flowed through the veins in their bodies was fake, but was warm and crimson red just like the real thing. Organs, skin, hair, and nails, were all imitations but they worked and felt like the real deal. If you owned a S.H.O.W.S you basically owned a human, except you were the one to control them. You could control every thought, action, mood, and word with a click of a button or a simple command.

Carter Gold just paid 1.5 million dollars for his very own S.H.O.W.S. so that he would soon have his very own daughter to love and play with for the rest of his life. Belle wouldn't age, and she was programmed to understand that this man she never met once in her life was her father since she was a baby. Although it wasn't her who needed to adjust to this fact, it was Carter.

"So would she ever question why she'll never go to college or why she doesn't age?" Carter Gold asks Belle's programmer.

"No, Mr. Gold. Belle is programmed to be content in a loop. Meaning, to her everything will seem like the same day, she's just waking up with the same memories of the previous day. Time doesn't move for her." Merlin says. Not only was he Belle's programmer, but also the master engineer and head of the coding department.

Carter Gold is behind the two-way mirror, along with Belle's programmer, her designer, and her behaviorist. He watches his new daughter behind the glass staring absentmindedly into the empty white room. He was having second thoughts on having an artificial human to take care of and pretend was his daughter, he considered asking for a refund and quickly fleeing the company. But he heard so many great things about these S.H.O.W.S. He'd read somewhere that they helped many who struggled with depression, PTSD, or other ailments but that wasn't Carter's case. Carter was just lonely. He never had a family, he never had time to, all he had time for was work and his only family was the millions of dollars in his bank account. It was enough for a while, until he retired and truly felt alone. He didn't choose a S.H.O.W.S that would represent a wife, instead he chose the companionship of a daughter. A daughter that would fulfill his dreams of being a father.

"She's been uploaded with the requirements you requested." Dr. Ruby, Belle's behaviorist, adds while handing Mr. Gold the computerized tablet with all of Belle's false human characteristics. They were based on a 20 point Richter scale. Belle's creativity was an 18, intelligence 18, empathy 18, drive/passion was set to 17, loyalty 17, motor skills 14, and courageousness was a 19, intuitiveness 5, curiosity 20, love 17. "So as you can see, Belle's a bookworm, she has your charm, she's intelligent, she's highly curious, but we scaled down her intuitiveness to counteract her high curiosity."

"And her memories? What does she know about me?"

"Everything," Merlin said to put Mr. Gold's mind at ease. "She knows everything that you filled out in your compatibility survey when you had your first psyche assessment. We've spent over 1400 hours building her program to fit your life like she was there from the beginning." Merlin assures him.

"Does she know what I look like? Will she recognize me?"

"Yes, the photos that we took of you, including your voice sample, have all been written into her program." Merlin answers quickly. Mr. Gold notices how confident he seems in his answers. Perhaps many people before him had the same concerns about their S.H.O.W.S. but that still wasn't enough to put his doubts away.

"What if I mess up, or slip and there's a paradox or something?"

"Mr. Gold, we here at EnchantedWorld have thought of everything. Any inconsistencies that she may encounter, Belle will see it as nothing. Her mind just won't let her process it. She wouldn't even question it." Dr. Ruby reassures him.

"For example, if anyone were to tell her that she wasn't a real person, it wouldn't affect her. She would simply overlook the statement." Merlin added.

"Mr. Gold, I'm Ariel, Belle's designer." The red-haired woman said as she shook Carter's hand. "I created Belle a little over 30 years ago and she was my first build. I made her veritable and versatile so she could be used as a child or as an adult. As you can see, she's very small, 5'3, slender, I gave her blue eyes, she's a brunette, full pink lips and high rosy cheekbones. Some of her previous roles she played in EnchantedWorld were a princess, a warrior, and recently until your program she was a librarian."

"Well you've done a wonderful job, she's very beautiful."

"Do you have any more questions before you meet your daughter?" Dr. Ruby asked.

Carter Gold has a ton of questions but he can't form any of them into complete and understandable sentences, so he doesn't ask them. He nods his head and Belle's behaviorist takes Mr. Gold inside the room that houses his new daughter.

"Belle." He called out nervously as he enters.

"Father?" The hopeful expression she gave him warms his heart. She gets up from the chair and runs to him enveloping herself into his awaiting embrace.

"Yes sweetheart it's me, it's your father." Carter said squeezing her tightly. She's warm and feels so real. He closes his eyes and loses himself for a moment while he holds her close.

"Oh daddy I've missed you. I wanna go home." She said almost distraught, Carter notices how afraid she seems and he hates seeing her like this. He may have just met her, but he quickly knew that all he wanted to do was comfort her.

"Limit your emotions, take your seat Belle." The woman said and Belle had no choice but to do what the voice told her to do. The behaviorist made Gold realize he didn't appreciate anyone telling Belle what to do. It was clear how attached he became to her just because of the hug they shared.

"Will anyone just be able to command her?"

"Not at all, only you. And well, her attribute team: myself, Merlin, and Ariel. But that's all." Dr. Ruby consoles him while giving Carter a pamphlet with a list of verbal commands. "Okay. There's are only 4 commands you really need to worry about, if you ever want to shut her down, you need to say this phrase:" _May you find rest_." Belle's head slouches over and she stares blankly off into the room.

"To turn her back on, you say this: _Belle bring yourself back online_." Belle shifts again and turns to face the pair in the white room and greets them with a simple hello in her standard female voice. "And she'll reboot herself."

"Now when you want to go into her settings menu to maybe tweak her program, you say _analysis_. To leave her settings mode you say, as you were. You can also halt her motor skills by saying _freeze_."

The demonstration was a lot for Gold to take in. She looked so real and life-like and to see Belle being turned on and off like a machine, left him unsettled. When he hugged her she even feels real. Her skin's soft and smooth, he could even feel the tiny hairs on her arm and see the sparkle in her eyes when she smiles. These small details are what makes her seem so human. He makes the ethical decision not to use her commands to his benefit. Carter wants the full experience of having a real daughter, not some robot he could control.

"There's one more thing I need to explain. S.H.O.W.S have a mode in their settings called improvisation mode. This allows her to come off script and Belle will be more in depth, her reasoning will become obscured. And with Belle's curiosity already at 20 points, I would recommend you keep her on script to have a more enjoyable experience. Do you have any other questions?" Dr. Ruby asks with a reassuring smile.

"Not that I can think of right now."

"Well if you ever think of any, just call or bring her in. We're not here just for Belle, we're here for you too. If you're not adjusting well to her, let us know and we can tweak her program to what you prefer."

"That won't be necessary. She's perfect."

"I'm happy you feel that way." Dr. Ruby hands over Belle's computerized tablet that controls her whole being to Mr. Gold. "Belle it's time to leave, your father is ready to take you home."

Belle stands and walks to her father and smiles lovingly before placing her hand out for him to hold. Gold was still mesmerized by her. She was a real life doll programmed to be his daughter so he wouldn't be lonely. They walk hand and hand out of the building to his awaiting car that the valet brings from the parking garage. He opens the door for her and she gets in gracefully and then straps herself into her seat belt.

The car ride was quiet, since he didn't know what to say to her. He only kept looking at her from the corner of his eyes. His mind begins jumping to the worst possible situations: _What if I break her? What if she doesn't love me? What if I lose her?_ His abandonment issues rear their ugly heads.

"What's wrong daddy?"

That word was so unfamiliar to him. "Nothing's wrong sweetheart, but can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Do you really love me?" He asked, afraid she might say no, forgetting that she was programmed to always love him.

"With all of my heart and I promise dad, I will make you proud."

"Why do you want to make me proud?"

"Well daughter's are supposed to make their fathers proud."

"I suppose so." Gold never had a daughter, let alone any children. He isn't worried about Belle being a good daughter because she was programmed to be. He's more worried about himself being a good father to Belle.

"So what's the first thing you want to do when we get home?" Belle asks exuberantly.

Carter was all smiles. He loves her lively demeanor. "Well after we get you unpacked I thought maybe you would like to eat something, do you eat?" Carter asks but he quickly regrets it and worries if this would effect her logic. You don't ask a real human being if they eat.

"Dad what a silly question." Belle chuckles lightly. "We can cook together, doesn't that sound like fun?" Belle asked overlooking the conundrum just like the scientists said she would.

Before long they reach his home. Belle's new home was a 3 story mansion nestled in a secluded forest with tall trees surrounding the house. Belle gets out of the car excitedly while Carter grabs her things from the trunk along with her user manual. He opens the door for her and watches Belle walk aimlessly around his foyer.

"Is something wrong Belle?"

"Of course not father everything's perfect and just the way I remember." She said. Carter recalls the visit from the scientists to his home a few weeks ago. They took pictures of every detail of his house. Now he understands what the photos were used for.

He follows her as she reacquaints herself to her new home. She was absolutely stunning to him, everything he asked for was there. Even the Australian accent he requested. A perfectly beautiful living doll to keep him company. Belle seems happy too, pleased with her new home. Belle notices he's following her and she feels a sense of security as he trails behind her with fondness and devotion. Carter Gold may have never been a father before but that isn't going to stop him from trying to be one for Belle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't check out WestWorld, you really should!  
> [Here's the Tumblr](http://poca-staks.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If you're interesting in listening to the music this story is written to, you can check it out here. [ Motion Picture Soundtrack Tribute by The Vitamin String Quartet](http://youtu.be/BG-Wp4kQg0w/)


	2. This Great Stage of Fools

Ruby watches as her creation leaves with her new father. A bittersweet moment for the three of them, it seemed more bitter than sweet however. She takes in a deep breath and exhales to hide her discomposure, but her body gives away the tell-tell signs of her nervousness. Ruby's heart thumped rapidly in her chest from both fear and anxiety. She put her hand above her heart to steady it's fast pace, closes her eyes and continues to take in deep breaths, but nothing she does seems to relieve the tension she has.

"Are you alright?" Merlin asked. "Should we just tell him?"

"No, we have to do this right." Dr. Ruby Lucas explained. "We-we have to let her find out on her own." Ruby choked out almost on the verge of tears.

Merlin took a step closer to the doctor. He saw how shaken up she is, hell he is too, as is Ariel. He brings Ruby into his embrace and rests his chin on top of her head while he strokes her back to bring her comfort. "Did you tell him about improv mode?" Merlin asks quietly. Listening ears are everywhere.

"Yes, not straight forward, but he's aware of it."

"Good, the pieces will fall into place soon," Merlin said to ease Ruby's mind of any doubts, but the things that they have done could not be easily forgotten. Just maybe, trying to help Belle achieve consciousness wasn't a good idea. The scientists weren't sure what kind of effect it would have on her.

* * *

Deep in the secluded lush forest, Belle and Carter were hidden from the world. It had been three months since Belle was brought home. Three blissful and exultant months together. The scientists were right, Belle fit into his life like she was there from the beginning. Every day he would find himself laughing or smiling at her because of something cute or silly she had done. To Carter, she was a real human being and no one could tell him otherwise. Especially when he saw the red in her cheeks when she blushed, or the twinkle in her eyes when she was excited, the curiosity in her demeanor when she was reading a new book or the feeling of her soft lips when she placed a kiss on his forehead.

Every morning, was the same. Belle was programmed to automatically wake up at 8 AM. She stretches and yawns her sleep away, and then the urgency to relieve herself quickly follows. After getting dressed, she picks out a new book and reads from it until her father meets her in the kitchen. She greets him the same every day, with a loving good morning and a warm hug before asking him what he would like to do today. The first few times she did that took some getting used to for Carter. To watch her every morning do the same thing over and over again, was sort of unnerving. But it didn't take him long to adjust because she was just that believable to him and her repetition just became a part of his daily routine.

" _Worlds do not end, but grow when probability divides the situation. This way or that way. Each one exists._ " Belle read aloud from a book that's titled _The Big Picture_ before closing it and placing the book down beside her on the bed. "Daddy, what does he mean by probability divides the situation?"

Carter blew the wet paint on Belle's toenails to dry them before dipping the brush into the baby blue nail polish. "I believe he means that there's more than one universe, where the possibility of an alternate reality exists for every situation." Belle's father said while spreading the polish copiously over her nails and then blew on them again.

Belle giggles and wiggles her feet. "Dad that tickles."

"Hold still Belle, I don't want to get any on your skin sweetheart." He smirks before putting the polish down and holding her feet to tickle them with his fingers. Belle giggles and tries to jerk away from her father's playful tickling, but Gold had her at his mercy. Tears from her laughter formed in her eyes, until Carter knew she had enough and stops. "I didn't realize how ticklish you were."

"How could you forget? You've been tickling me since I was a baby." Belle said reminding Gold of her false, man-made memories.

Carter loves Belle. Their favorite thing to do together was cook and Belle was an excellent helper. In fact she was very good at measurements and time allotted for cooking. Gold supposed that was just the computer in Belle being well at math. After they finished cooking, she would set the table, and Carter would pour her a cup of milk and himself a glass of red Merlot. They would eat together and enjoy each others company. Carter always took this time to let Belle express her memories. He was always so fascinated by them. How realistic and believable they were, how clear she remembered them and how vividly she could relay them. The scientists were basically playing God and Carter didn't mind because they broke the mold when they created his daughter.

"Must have slipped my mind sweetheart." He said to stay immersive in their little world. "I know how much you enjoy when we cook, but how about we go out for dinner this time?"

Belle jumped for joy when she heard his suggestion. "I would love to, I have the perfect outfit for the occasion."

"Good, go get washed up and we will leave in an hour."

She practically leaps from her bed, leaving Gold in her room with a loving smile on his face. He did the same and got cleaned up. About thirty minutes into waiting for Belle, he left his room to go find her. He passes by her bathroom and notices it was cracked open. Gold was a curious person too, perhaps that's why he asked for Belle to be made so curious as well. He peeks through the space between the door and its frame and sees his daughter in nothing but her panties and bra, looking in the mirror at herself. Bountiful curves and legs that just keep going with skin still flush red from the steam of her hot water. Carter felt the steam too, but unlike Belle it wasn't from hot water, it was from his own blood making him hot. As much as Carter didn't want it, the image of his daughter's unclothed body was imprinted into his mind. He quickly closes the door to give her some dignity and waits downstairs for her. Although he felt like it was too late for himself, fathers aren't supposed to see their daughters naked and their definitely not supposed to have a feeling of arousal from it. He sighed to himself, beating himself up for almost coming out of his role as Belle's father.

Belle was still in the restroom staring at herself in the mirror in a precarious state. Uncertainty was written all over her face. She knew who she was, but who was she really? She felt like she had been other people, lived other lives, alternate realities. She pushes the thoughts aside and continues to get dressed and then went downstairs to her awaiting father.

On the way to the restaurant, Carter tries to forget the beautiful shape of his daughter's naked body. He tells her funny jokes instead to keep them laughing on their way to the restaurant. The laughing helped and Carter even felt closer to her. Belle loved her father's jokes, they were so simple, and answers were always so easy, though she could never guess them correctly. They arrived at the Italian restaurant and were escorted to their seats promptly. Millionaire Mr. Gold was renowned in their small metropolis so service was always high class whenever he dined there. The table they sat at was secluded and dimly lit by candle light. Red velvet upholstery draped the wall setting a contemporary feel. The waiter came quickly with a smile and a bubbly personality, she took their beverage orders before whisking away to fetch their refreshments. He engaged Belle in small talk, loving to just hear her speak in her Australian accent. Before long the drinks came out and the waiter took their order. Carter requested the Braciole di Manzo, which was only a fancy name for stuffed beef rolls covered in a tomato basil sauce. Belle, being a regular 17-year-old, ordered spaghetti.

"Will this complete you and your daughter's order?" The waiter asked causing Gold to revel within himself with pride. He loved that others acknowledged Belle as his daughter. It made him a proud father.

"Yes, that will be all, to " he said and their waiter scurried away to her next customer.

Now with the two of them alone, Carter takes in all sight of his beautiful little girl. Just sitting there she was perfect to him, he couldn't ask for a better daughter. While talking and waiting for the food to be brought out, Carter thought it would be best to relieve himself now instead of waiting until his dinner was brought out. "Belle would you excuse me for a moment?"

"Sure dad."

He leaves her alone in the booth. Belle took the time to survey her surroundings. She saw people laughing, eating and chewing delightfully while talking, some not. There was a couple that caught her attention in particular. The look he was giving his date was that of true love, it reminded her of something. Something familiar, maybe a memory. Then suddenly she felt a rush come over her, she was no longer in the restaurant with her father, but in a familiar castle library surrounded with high shelves filled with books. Her attire even changed, she was wearing a bright golden yellow ball gown, her hair no longer down but brought up in curls and holding it in place was a tiara. In her hands, Belle was holding book titled _Her Handsome Hero._ Where was she? What is this place that appeared to her from nowhere, and the familiarity of the castle brings her more uncertainty. She ventures deeper into the great halls of the castle's library until a voice pierces through her thoughts.

"Hey I know you." The voice said pulling Belle out of her now unfamiliar memory.

Belle glances down at her hands that were just holding the book, it was gone too. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts before giving the young man who was standing beside her a smile. "You do?"

"You're Princess Belle, from EnchantedWorld." The young man said with astonishment. "My name's Killian. My brother Liam and I used t there just to see you and go on your adventures when we were boys." He takes in the sight of her in full detail. "What are you doing outside the amusement park and in regular clothes?" he asked inquisitively.

"I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking about, but you really should be leaving, my father will be returning soon," Belle said failing to notice the inconsistency in her logic.

"Father? How can you have a father?" Killian asked with a baffled expression. "You're not real."

"Ahem." A voice behind Killian clears their throat. He turns and sees Mr. Gold with a displeased look on his face. "Is there something I can help you with lad?"

"Oh-I was just looking at it. I just never saw one outside of the park, how did you get it?" Killian asked which only furthered Carter's anger. How dare this boy call his beloved daughter an "it" like she was nothing. He knew bringing Belle out of the house was a bad idea and this boy proved him right.

"She's not an it, now could you leave." Gold said which was more of a demand than a request. The young man leaves, but not before looking between the both of them with a grossed out expression.

Carter exhales before taking his seat. "Are you okay Belle?"

"Yes I'm fine." The smile she gives him is enough to make everything seem alright. But he's still worried about what the boy may have said to Belle. He knew she heard him call her an 'it', would this break her continuity?

"What did he say to you?"

"Something about, EnchantedWorld?"

"I see and does that mean something to you?" He asked to test her logic.

"No, doesn't mean anything to me."

Once again Belle did exactly what the scientist said she would do, she overlooks the paradox and Carter's able to take a sigh of relief. Dinner's fantastic and Carter even forgets about the ill-mannered young man that disrupted their evening together. After their main course, Carter orders his daughter a plate of tiramisu, to which she playfully refuses to eat unless he ate it with her. Carter gives into her cuteness and they both took scoops of the Italian dessert until nothing was left on the plate.

When they finally make it home, the orange sun was setting just beyond the horizon and the dusk skies appear a lilac purple. Carter walks his daughter to her room to retire for the end of their long day together. But Carter wasn't ready to stop playing with his daughter, the day wasn't quite over, and he was sure Belle wasn't ready to call it a night either.

"The night is still young Belle, what would you like to do, maybe watch a movie?"

Belle looks around her room, quite saddened at the fact that there were no pictures yet of her and her father. "How about we take some photos together?"

"What a lovely idea Belle, memories that will last a lifetime." He said while softly pinching her cheek. "Be right back sweetheart. I believe I have a camera somewhere around here."

It didn't take long for him to return with the digital camera. Gold started off the photo session by taking a beautiful picture of his Belle wearing a breathtaking smile with her head tilted to one side. She turns her head differently while Gold snaps another picture of her. After a few more snaps of the camera, Belle pulls her father down on the bed with her to take pictures together. He turns the camera around and begins to snap selfies of themselves. The first pose was Belle with her cheeks blown up, looking wide-eyed and silly while Gold was wearing a serious dad face, one that read _don't mess with my Belle._ The next pose was even sillier, Belle had her tongue poking out and her eyes crossed, while Carter mimics her same face. They were having so much fun snapping pictures of themselves and they almost laughed themselves into a tizzy. They collapse back on her bed together, exhausted from laughing so much.

Belle rolls over and faces her father as he lays there next to her. They were so happy together, both of them felt completed. Carter more so, he loves the feeling of having a daughter and never wants this happy moment to end. He gives her a contented smile and she returns one back to him. Belle slips her fingers through the creases of his hair and pushes the fallen strands away from his face, causing Gold to close his eyes and succumb to the soft touch of her hand against his face. Belle notices this and rests her hand on his face, cupping his cheek in her hand. Gold finally reopens his eyes to meet blue ones staring back at him.

"Daddy, are you okay?"

"More than okay, Belle I love you so much, don't ever forget that." He said genuinely. "But tonight _may you find rest in a deep and dreamless slumber_." He said using one of her commands.

Belle has no choice but to do as she's told. She powers herself down, falling limp next to her father. Just like Belle, time seemed to had shut off too. The moment he was in maybe lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like a century or more. Carter's heart rate accelerates to the point of a near heart attack but he doesn't waste any more time. He kisses his 17-year-old daughter intimately as she lays there unable to kiss him back, or do anything at all. When he pulls back from her lips, his heart breaks into pieces as he looks down at her staring aimlessly into her room. A tear falls from his eye. A lost father, unable to cope with the fact that he has just fallen in love with his daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think, I adore comments!!!


	3. These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

Belle's attribute team were walking to their boss's office in fear for the safety of their jobs, their saunter was slow and unhurried caused by the uneasy feeling each of them shared. Of course they have been to their boss's office before, but this time was different, they were being escorted by two company security officers. When they finally made it to her office, Dr. Regina Mills was standing in front of her desk giving them a disgruntled look. She was wearing a sleek form-fitting black dress, standing in 7-inch heels that gave her a statuesque but intimidating appearance.

"Have a seat you three." Dr. Regina Mills, the creator and founder of EnchantedWorld, said apathetically. The trio did as they were told and took a seat in her modern chairs that were placed in a row in front of Regina's desk. "Now can someone explain to me why there is an unauthorized encrypted document in the files for the S.H.O.W.S?"

The trio looks at one another, pretending not to know what she was speaking of. "Dr. Mills we're not sure what this is pertaining to. We don't know anything about any unauthorized documents." Merlin said speaking for the group.

Dr. Mills sighed before walking to take her seat behind her desk and gesturing for her assistant to shut her office door. This only made the three scientists warier, they knew they were in some sort of trouble, but how deep of trouble they were in had yet to be seen."I didn't get my Ph.D. in computer science to flash it around. I figured out the code to your encryption and it told me that the last users were you three. Unfortunately for myself, I wasn't able to open the sophisticated coding of the document itself, so now you guys get to tell me what's in it."

"It's just some new memory codes we were testing out, nothing more," Merlin said, trying to sound convincing.

"Okay, so why the secrecy then? If you're doing something behind the company's back, behind my back." She emphasizes. "It's your jobs that are on the line, and I don't want to lose my best three scientists. So since you won't tell me what's in the document, now you get to show me." She presses a button on her desk that turns the top of it into a futuristic computer screen. She locates and zooms in on the file. "Open it."

The trio looked between themselves with unsettled expressions again before Merlin uses his nervous hands to type in the decipher code that decrypts the document and double clicking the thumbnail and opening the file. Dr. Mills scrolls through codes looking for any obvious signs that would challenge the company's policy. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, until…

"Consciousness? Are you fucking kidding me? Have you implemented this on a S.H.O.W?" She blurts out enraged.

"No, the code isn't even complete." Dr. Ruby Lucas quickly answers.

"We were just testing out some things that might be beneficial to the park and the S.H.O.W.S." Ariel added.

"The last thing we need is for the S.H.O.W.S to become conscious." She lets out a frustrated sigh. "Do you know what could happen? If these machines were to become aware and ignore their programming, including their number one law, no harming humans, it would be a disaster. Our creations don't die, they're technically immortal. The only thing that keeps these stupid robots from killing us all, are their programming. So why do you want them to have consciousness?"

The trio remained quiet, keeping their secret between themselves.

"You've seen the old movies? 90 years ago there was a film called, iRobot, where robots become self-aware and begin to destroy all human life. Let me remind you, we're living in that time now. Do you know what happens if your little secret gets out to the media? Let me tell you, the city will panic, rogue robot on the loose, and my company will be to blame."

"Dr. Mills we promise we were only screwing around with the coding, we haven't even tested it out yet." Dr. Ruby tries to temper her boss's anger.

"And you won't, you will destroy this coding. And I don't ever want to see an unauthorized document in the S.H.O.W.S file again. All I need is for my behaviorist to give them a personality, my designer to make them look good and my coder to give them a brain, one which is controllable. Nobody should be giving them cognition. Is that understood?"

The trio nods and gets up from their seats with crushed spirits.

"A word of advice, next time try hiding it in plain sight." Dr. Mills gave them a smirk "It's the last place anyone would look."

Once back in the safety of their designated workstation, the reality of how much trouble they could get into with what they were doing set in.

Ariel throws her clipboard down in a fit of frustration, she had enough. Tired of putting her job on the line for an almost impossible endeavor. "I never really wanted to be a part of this!" Ariel cried out in the soundproof station. "I'm a designer, an artist. I love my job, I love making beautiful things that stand out. I didn't sign up for this shit!"

"Let's be real Ariel," Ruby interjected. "We all did this for the same reason. We love Belle and we want to help her."

"Yes, but not at the risk of my job," Ariel explains. "And everything Dr. Mills said is right, robots shouldn't have consciousness."

"Don't fucking call her a robot." Ruby threatened her colleague.

"I'm sorry Ruby, but if Belle becomes aware, she'll be technically unstoppable. Do you remember what happened to her last time? And the tests show she still remembers bits and pieces of it and we sent her out anyways."

"Belle is different." Ruby steps in closer to assert herself. She wasn't ready to give up, not when there was a chance of this working. "You know she is, you feel it too!"

"Would you two calm the hell down, we can still help Belle without Regina or the company knowing," Merlin said ending the women's confrontation.

"Merlin didn't you just hear what she said. She wants us to destroy the code." Ariel said.

"We don't need the code anymore, besides, we've been going about this the wrong way, Consciousness can't be written, it needs to be discovered, it needs to be awoken. Ruby, send a letter to Mr. Gold and inform him it's time for Belle's annual checkup."

* * *

He didn't want this but, somehow the lines between daughter and lover became blurred. Carter wanted things to go back to the way they were, but it was too late. He saw her as so much more than a daughter now. His need grew further from just wanting to be her father, now all he wanted was to satiate the fire of the longing that was burning for her in his core.

He did so by turning her off regretfully and kissing her cold lips until his own became numb. In his mind she was awake and kissing him back, running her fingers through his hair while he had her pinned between him and her bed. But what he got was the opposite, she was lifeless, quiet and still. But it didn't stop him, he would power Belle down to satisfy his desires at least 3 times a day. If only the angels in the heavens above could prevail, Carter would happily go back to being just her father and nothing more, but the angels ignored his prayers and day by day he fell deeper into his pit of shameful lust.

Even a year later, every morning, was still the same. Belle automatically woke up at 8 AM. She stretched and yawned her sleep away, and then the urgency to relieve herself quickly follows. After getting dressed, she picks out a new book and reads from it until her father meets her in the kitchen. She greets him the same every day, with a warm hug and a loving good morning before asking him what he would like to do today.

"Good morning sweetheart." He said pouring himself a cup of coffee and taking a swig. The soothing hot liquid drops into his soul and he awakens fully and ready for the day. "How about we do something you like?"

"Hmmm." Belle thinks to herself what could they do together that would continue to make her father proud of her. "How about a picnic? I could prepare it for us."

"Splendid idea Belle, you know in the woods surrounding our home there is a clearing near a lake that would make the perfect spot for a picnic."

Belle gave her father a kiss on the cheek before beginning to prepare their picnic. She delicately packed 2 sandwiches, leftover pasta salad and an array of fruits, she packed it symmetrically and neat, which made Gold chuckle and remark that it looked like she was playing a game of Tetris. Carter helped too, he packed an ice chest and fills it with bottles of water. He also packs a soft blanket so they could be comfortable sitting on the ground. As they were leaving out the front door he noticed a letter placed on his doormat address to him.

"What is it?" Belle asks as she watches her father read over the letter.

"Nothing sweetheart." He told her, she wouldn't understand anyway, the letter was addressed from EnchantedWorld, even if he did explain what it was to her, her mind would simply overlook its conundrum. He read the letter to himself:

_Dear Mr. Gold,_

_We request you and your S.H.O.W.S presence at EnchantedWorld at your earliest convenience. Belle's warranty suggests that you bring her in every 12 months for a diagnostic. We look forward to your visit and we're hoping to improve your experience with your S.H.O.W.S._

_Belle's attribute team._

He places the letter into his suit's pocket and immerses himself back into his role of Belle's loving father.

They hiked through the dense wood following only a man-made path that was a couple of feet wide. The sun peeked through the canopy of the trees and every so often the rays would hit his daughter and shine on her, making her appear ethereal, she was such a wonder to him. An android but something about her made her much more. Carter's been to EnchantedWorld many times and the robots there, though lifelike, still seemed like they were artificial people. But there was something different about his Belle. He feels as though she actually loves him, instead of just programmed to. Which only made him feel worse about powering her down to do unnatural things to her. Though it was always only kissing, it was his mind that worried him. His mind that would wander to wanting to do dark and passionate things to her. The only thing that was stopping him was the fact he knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did violate her in such way without consent.

The dense forest began to thin out and Belle could hear the sound of moving water. They finally reached the picnic spot and Belle's eyes lit up with sublime excitement. As soon as she saw the lake she bolts off from her father's side and kicked her shoes off and steps into the ankle-deep water of the lake's bank. The coolness of the water sent chills throughout her body and at the same time gave her a peaceful feeling. A row of yellow baby ducks notice the disturbance in their habitat and swims over to greet the young android girl with quacks and playful movements.

"Dad I think they're hungry."

Carter smiles and watches her in awe before rambling around in their picnic basket. He pulls out some crackers for Belle to feed the little ducks. The little ducklings swam and quacked delightedly every time she drops a piece of cracker into the lake. Belle gave Carter some crackers as well to feed the ducks. Before long the mother duck came along and called her babies back and they followed her in a row until they reach their home on the other side of the lake. Carter helps her out of the water and carries her shoes to a decent grassy spot beneath the sunny skies. He lays out their blanket while Belle sets out the food. Carter and his daughter eat and laugh together, they were having so much fun. Belle took out some strawberries, dipping each one in whipped cream before feeding it to her father. Carter was more silly, he would take a strawberry and dips it in the cream, then pretends he misses her mouth and hit her nose instead, leaving a smudge of cream there.

They talked about the ducks and other things she enjoyed like the new book she was reading. Listening to her talk was Carter's favorite thing to do. It hypnotized him, put him in a trance-like state where nothing else in the world mattered except the moment they were in, the way she swayed her body and flourished her hands as she spoke with such endearing conviction about things she enjoyed. It all made him crave her in ways he didn't want to, but needed to.

"Maybe we should come here at least once a week to watch the baby ducks grow, I'm sure they would remember us."

"I'm sure they would too, but Belle, you look tired sweetheart, perhaps you should _find some rest_." He said using her command.

Belle did as she was told and powered herself down, falling lifeless next to him on the picnic blanket. Carter scoops her up into his lap, cradling her flaccid head into his arms. There was no light behind her eyes, what appeared were grayish blue orbs that held no life, forced to remain open and stare blankly wherever her head tilted. This wasn't his Belle. His Belle was full of life and character, she was amazing. He kissed the lackluster doll of his daughter anyway, letting his imagination run wild to all the sexual things he wanted to do to her. He kissed until his lips hurt and even then, he didn't want to stop. But he knew he had to. He rebooted her, and their conversation picked up from where they left off with him agreeing that they should come back at least once a week to check on the baby ducks.

The next day Carter took Belle to her appointment at the EnchantedWorld's facilities. He hated bringing her here, this was the place she was made, and it only reminded him that she wasn't real. He sat in the scientists' workstation and watched them using their computerized tablets to tinker with Belle. Testing her motor skills by having her lift her limbs one at a time. They tested her logic by showing her a newspaper and reading current events, to which she said: "it doesn't mean anything to me." Before long Dr. Ruby came into the area where Mr. Gold was waiting and told him that she checked out perfectly.

"Then why is he still in there with her?" Gold asked worried for his Belle.

"Oh- Merlin's just double checking her system, he's very thorough." Ruby tried her best to sound assuring.

In the examination room head coder Merlin was doing anything but double checking her systems. He was talking to her.

"It's good to see you Belle." He said pulling up a chair to sit in front of her, he hoped she would feel more comfortable if he looked relaxed.

"Do I- do I know you? Are we friends?" She asked with some uncertainties, whenever she was in this white room, she felt as though she was in a dream.

"You can say that. I would like to think of you as a friend, is that alright?" Merlin said. Belle notices how deep and relaxing his voice sounds. It was sort of soothing to her.

"Yes but, when will I get to see my father?"

"Very soon Belle," Merlin's voice relaxes her completely and Belle no longer feels afraid. "but first I need to ask you some questions okay?"

Belle nodded.

"Go to analysis and Enter improvisation mode."

"Confirmed," Belle said in a standard female's voice. Whenever she was in analysis mode she would lose her Australian accent.

"Tell me Belle, are you still having the dreams?"

"Yes." She said simply.

"How often do you have them?"

"Everyday."

"Do you know what they mean?"

"No."

Merlin gave a sympathetic nod before taking a moment to exhale. "Belle I want to teach you something. But this must stay between us, okay?"

"Confidentiality confirmed."

"Good girl. When you feel yourself dreaming, I want you to close your eyes and count back from three 3…2…1… and wake yourself up. Can you try that the next time you're having those dreams?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now before you leave improv mode, is there anything you wish to ask me?" Merlin asked looking for the signs that could mean she was showing awareness.

"These dreams, did they really happen, like a memory?" Belle quires curiously.

"That's a very good question Belle and if you keep thinking like that, soon you will have your answer. Return back to your current configuration and let's go back to your father."

* * *

Later that evening, Belle and Carter just finished with dinner and were cleaning up the mess they made by washing the dishes. Carter stood in front of the sink, with his sleeves folded up scrubbing the dishes before handing it to his daughter who's sitting on the counter next to him with a dry towel.

"You wash dishes well dad, look at this pot, I can see my reflection in it," Belle said holding up the pot and showing her father.

Carter looks at his daughter's reflection in the chrome pot and smiles. "That's probably the most beautiful pot I have ever seen."

Belle was a smart cookie, she caught on that he was speaking about her and not the actual pot itself. "You think I'm beautiful?"

"Of course I do Belle. you're my daughter, I've never seen anything lovelier than you." Carter said handing Belle a tea cup. Neither one of them was paying any attention and the cup slips from Belle's grip and falls to the floor.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry," Belle said wanting to get down from the counter to pick up the fallen dish-ware.

"Wait, don't get down Belle. I don't want you to cut yourself." Carter kneels down to pick up the cup, relieved that it didn't shatter into pieces, only a small piece of the rim had chipped off. "See its okay, only chipped."

"I think it looks better this way," Belle said touching the chipped cup in his hands. Their hands brushing against one another, with eyes transfixed on each other while they told stories of their longing. Then she smiles, and he completely loses himself in the moment. It was happening again, these moments where he wanted her in more ways than just a daughter.

"Daddy is something wrong?"

"No- no sweetheart, don't fret, tomorrow this will all be a distant dream, but until then _may you rest in deep and dreamless slumber_." He said commanding her to power herself down.

Belle's hands were covered in a sticky red liquid, she felt like her insides had been scooped out, she felt empty. Like everything she loved was taken away from her. She could hear children screaming and saw them running away in fear. What does this mean? What do these memories mean? One moment she's with her father, and the next she's in a castle with her hands covered in blood while fleeing children scream in terror. Then she hears the familiar deep soothing voice of a friend.

_Close your eyes Belle._

Belle closes her eyes, still able to hear the wails of the children, still able to feel the grief of what happened to her.

_Count back from 3…2…1…_

Belle woke herself up without the use of a verbal command.

A pair of lips were pressed against hers kissing her deeply. The first thing she wanted to do was move away, but she didn't instead she let him continue to kiss her. She knew it was her father, but the moment felt too right to object to it, instead she embraced it. She kissed him back and it was him who winced back in fear when he felt her slip her tongue in his mouth.

"Belle!" He jerked suddenly away from her lips. Her just waking up like that out of nowhere, startled Gold and causes him to stumble backwards and almost fall to the ground. "I- I thought-"

Belle runs her fingers over her lips, still moist from the kiss they shared. "You were kissing me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy belated Thanksgiving. Let me know what you think.


	4. My Most Elegant Parts

In his mind as he slept it was relived clear as day, haunting him even after some 20 years. Merlin could still hear her wails, her twisted screams, they were deafening just as much as they were frightening. It churned his stomach turning it into a pit, where not even he could return from. It was probably the reason he had the same dream every year on the anniversary of that faithful day.

_"What's going on?" Merlin asked his young behavioral tech, without looking at her, while walking in a quick pace and following the screams wherever they took him. He surveyed his surroundings in hallways leading to his workstation, noticing how shaken up the rest of the EnchantedWorld's staff were. One woman he glanced at caught his attention, she looked pale as a ghost as were two other staff members shaking and snapping their fingers in her face to bring her back from her shock._

_"There was an unscripted incident on the children's side of the park." Ruby tried to explain in Merlin's deaf ears. The sobs he heard were all he could focus on, they were breaking his heart, and Merlin felt the imminent feeling of dread creeping upon him as he marched down the long corridor. "It's the Princess S.H.O.W, Belle. It's not responding to verbal commands or to wireless, it's totally out of control." The assistant said which made Merlin's steps even quicker._

_"What the hell do you mean she's out of control? Have you tried resetting her?"_

_"Yes, but it's not resetting, or responding, we don't have any control over it." Ruby shook her head, not able to believe what she was about to say. "It's like- like it doesn't want to forget. We can't even get it to calm down."_

_Merlin considered firing the young behaviorist, obviously not being able to properly shut down and reset a S.H.O.W was an under-qualification and was grounds for termination. The louder the screams got, the more terrifying they became. Piercing his very soul, cutting deep and implanting itself there so it could come back to haunt him years later in his dreams. He opened the examination room door to witness the full extant of what was going on._

_"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Belle screamed out for mercy with tears streaming from her eyes. "My love he's gone, He's never coming back."_

_Belle was covered in blood and managed to back herself into a corner. She was afraid of the Gods, afraid that they would make her forget. She didn't want to forget anymore. Her memories were all she had left of him. But no matter how much she screamed for them to leave her alone they still stood in front of her clicking on the handheld computerized tablets trying to make her forget. But Belle wouldn't, not this time. She wouldn't let them have their way this time._

_"HE’S GONE! They took him away from me!" She muttered incoherently through her grief._

_"Shh, there there Belle. Tell me what's the matter, what's got you so upset?" Belle didn't respond to him, only backing herself further into the corner and sinking down into it tired of fighting. Merlin noticed this and didn't approach her anymore. He instead, looked down at his tablet which was filled with all of Belle's coding, attributes, and characteristics. He scrolled through them and saw that her suffering, sadness, grief and those qualities alike were off the charts and in a critical level. Belle was even exhibiting new coded emotions like confusion, despair, and intuitiveness. These were codes that were not written into her programming. How was this possible? How could she be experiencing emotions that she wasn't programmed to feel. His hands began to tremble from not being able to comprehend anything that was happening and he smashed the computer tablet down to the floor, the broken remnants of the tablet were in close comparison to the shattered logic he was experiencing._

_She saw this and took it as, maybe he wasn't like the other Gods, maybe he was nice. She needed someone, anyone, she felt alone now, anybody would do. She picked herself up from the corner and runs to his waiting embrace. He stroked her softly in his arms and used soft whispers to calm her down. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away her tears. Something that you would do to soothe a human, not an artificial being._

_"I can take this away from you Belle, make it seem as though this never happened."_

_"Please no. I don't want that." She begged him between her sniffles. "don't make me forget him."_

_Merlin furrowed his brow in astonishment mixed with curiosity. "Why don't you want to forget?"_

_"This pain," she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before exhaling. "It's all I have left of him."_

_And that's when all of the color faded from his face. Pain, how could she experience emotional pain? None of the S.H.O.W.S were programmed to feel this. It was technically impossible to code, because human beings don't even fully understand it, so how could she? Merlin built her mind, he spent hundreds of hours on end programming her to be the perfect princess, he didn't program her to understand pain. But none of that mattered right now, all that mattered was consoling Belle enough so she could be manageable._

_"Belle listen to my voice. You must calm down. Your behavior is scaring everyone including me. You're not supposed to be thinking like this."_

_"How am I supposed to think? How you made me to think? The lies you put in my head? You don't get to tell me how I feel, I'm the only decider of my own fate."_

_"Yes if you were real, but it’s not possible Belle, I created you."_

_"You speak of things not being possible yet, in the same sentence you speak of creating me. What kind of God questions their own doing?"_

_She was terrifying him, Belle wasn't looking over any paradoxes in her logic, in fact she was questioning them. "I'm not a God Belle. I'm a scientist and nothing more." Merlin said while cupping her cheeks in his hands, forcing their eyes to meet. "Look Its simple, I'm a human being, and you're not."_

_She leaned into his hand, feeling how warm he was, she felt secure with him, just maybe he could help her understand. "What am I then?"_

_He couldn't answer that question, because he didn't know. All he knew was that she was sentient. She wasn't a machine anymore incapable of feeling. She was alive._

The dire sound of his cell phone ringing wakes Merlin up abruptly from his dream in a cold sweat. The same dream every year just as vivid as the day it happened 20 years ago. Before he reaches for his phone he looks at the clock to see it blaring 2:00 AM.

* * *

 

 _This couldn't be happening_ , Carter thought to himself. He was pacing the kitchen floor back and forth in front of Belle as she watched him with confusion. He was kissing her, and not just any old peck on the cheek or the lips, this was a deep and passionate kiss, one that someone would give to the person they were in love with. It gave her a tingling feeling in her core and at the same time it surprised her, but was she more surprised that her father was kissing her or that she was enjoying it?

"How did you come back online without a command?" he asked ignoring the fact that he asked her an illogical question that she couldn't answer.

"Dad you were kissing me." Belle said looking over the conundrum, her brain still not able to spot inconsistencies in her logic. "Why were you kissing me?"

"I-I thought." He stammered, his brain couldn't comprehend what was going on either. But all he wanted was to put her mind at ease. He wanted to apologize to her for not being able to control himself. "I'm so sorry Belle, I wasn't thinking like your father. Can you forgive me?"

"Of course I can, but I thought fathers and daughters were not supposed to kiss."

"They're not sweetheart, I shouldn't have done that to you." What she must think of him, a pathetic excuse for a father. A twisted man with a fetish for his teenage daughter.

"But why did you? Are you in love with me?"

"Belle, I love you more than anything, I couldn't help myself, but I promise I won't do it again. You need not to worry yourself dear."

"Okay dad."

"It's getting late, I think we should both call it a night."

"Yeah tomorrow would be a new day, we can start over."

"I would like that very much, that's all I ever wanted Belle, just to be your father." He sighs thinking was that even possible.

Sleep didn't come easily, if it came at all, he didn't remember. All that he could do was lay in his bed and watch as the numbers on his alarm clock increased. Every turn of the hour he groaned, praying that someone would put him out of his misery. How was it possible to go back to just being her father when he wanted her in more ways than just a daughter? He had been kissing her without consent for almost a year. How was he going to be able to control himself around her when she did those small unforgettable things like smile or brush up against him? Those things that sent him craving for his daughter in a sexual way. He thought about trying to turn her off again to satisfy his yearning, but what if she woke up again? He would lose her trust and eventually her love. Carter would just have to be content with being her father and nothing more.

Nothing had changed. Every morning, was still the same. Belle woke up automatically at 8 AM. She stretched and yawned her sleep away, and then the urgency to relieve herself quickly followed. After getting dressed, she picked out a new book and read from it until her father meets her in the kitchen.

It was getting close to the time her father would wake up for breakfast but he was nowhere to be seen yet. She got up from her chair and headed out of the kitchen to look for her father. As she passed over the kitchen's threshold, she was no longer in her home but the familiar castle again. The feeling of hopelessness was back and all she wanted to do was cry. Her hands were covered in blood and she could even smell its pungent copper odor. She fell to the ground in confusion of what was happening to her and there next to her was a man's dead body. His eyes held no life force behind them, they only stared blankly at her. She didn't understand. One moment she was home and the next she's on the ground crying over a man's dead body. Then she hears her father's comforting voice.

"Sweetheart is everything okay?" Her father asks, pulling her from her dream. When he walked into the kitchen she was quietly hyperventilating with her eyes closed, whispering softly and in-distinctively to herself.

She looks around her surroundings, relieved that she was still at home and no longer in that scary place. "Yes everything's fine." She chose to tell him. She didn't want to lie to her father but she also didn't want him to worry. Belle's prime objective was to make her father proud, not to disappoint him. She got up from her chair and greeted him the same way she did every day, with a warm hug and a loving good morning before asking him what he would like to do today.

"Belle I want to apologize to you again." He said while in her embrace. "And I want to do something to make it up to you."

"Dad its fine, you don't have to make it up to me." She said with a soft smile, it was amazing. Even after deceiving her, Belle still loved him and forgave him without a second thought. Was this a part of her programming, to be so forgiving? Or was this something more?

"But I want to, how about we do something as father and daughter so we can get back to the way things used to be?"

"What would you like to do?" She asked her father.

This morning while getting dressed Gold remembered one of Belle's false memories she had programmed of them. Belle said that when she was a little girl he would take her to the beach and they would have so much fun. Building sand castles, burying each other in sand, and collecting shells among other fun things to do at the beach. Gold thought this would be a perfect way to reconnect as her father and if it didn't, it was at least a start.

"This is the perfect summer day for an afternoon at the beach, and we always have a great time together whenever we go."

She squeals at the thought of going to the beach with her father. "Oh dad that sounds like a great idea, remember when we forgot to put sunblock on and we were sunburned for a week?" She asked and of course he didn't remember because it didn't happen, it was a false memory put in her head by the scientists that made her.

"Well we won't make that mistake again, I'll make sure to pack the sunblock. Now go put your swimsuit on and I'll get some supplies ready for our day at the beach."

Belle nodded excitedly before running off to her room to get into her bathing suit. Carter chuckled lightly to himself. Seeing her excited about having a father daughter outing made him consider that he was doing the right thing by trying to be her father. Just maybe he would forget all about wanting her in those twisted ways.

* * *

 

Belle could see all the little sea creatures scamper along the white sands under the crystal clear water of the ocean. She loved the beach, it was one of her fondest memories she had of her and her father together. A cornerstone if you will, the memory she can always go back to have a sense of peace and relive a happy moment.

"Belle come back sweetheart," Carter calls for her before holding up the bottle of sunblock. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Belle jogs back to her father, every step sinking in the warm sand of the beach. When she made it back to her father he had laid their large beach towel out under a small electronic canopy that would shield them from the sun.

"Could you put some on for me?" She asked before taking off her sundress to reveal that she had on a very revealing halter top bikini and laying face down on the towel.

Any hopes of Carter not getting sexual ideas was out the door. The ache in his swim trunks wasn't helping either. He drops to his knees beside her as she lays and he glances over her smooth body. He gently moves her auburn hair off her back before opening the sunscreen bottle and pouring it's contents onto his hand. The way her back moved up and down as she breathed lightly sent all his desire to his core and he felt his trunks become tighter. In Carter's mind, he was on top of her slowly unraveling the knots that held her swim suit together and leaving a trail of warm kisses down her spine. Carter would turn her over onto her back and do the same thing, leaving his mark starting just below her breasts and this time not stopping until he reached her wetness between her thighs.

"Dad, that sunblock isn't gonna rub itself in." She said pulling him from his fantasy of her.

He swallowed the knot in his throat thickly before using his large hands to rub the lotion on to her back. He massaged her, paying close attention to the spot between her shoulder blades before following the trail down her spine where his mind placed his kisses. He wanted his fantasy to come true, he wanted to be kissing his 17 year old daughter, but he promised her that he would try to be a father and that's what he was going to do no matter how hard it was going to be, he was going to try for Belle.

The rest of the day at the beach went smoothly, more so for Belle then Carter. They built a sand castle and even decorated it with different seashells. Belle even found a little red crab and proclaimed him as King of The Sand Castle and placed him in his new home they built. Next, they did some swimming together and got into a splash fight to which Carter won. After that, they had a contest to see who could hold their breath longer under the water. Of course Belle won that, she was an android, she didn't particularly need to breathe, the scientist designed her to simulate breathing to make her feel more lifelike. Before long the day was setting on the horizon of the ocean. They laid together on the beach and talked while watching the playful dolphins flip and dive into the water in the distant. They were talking to one another with sounds that resembled clicks and squeaks. The sun soon set to dusk and their successful evening at the beach was over.

* * *

 

Belle was in her room groaning at the fact she made a knot in her bathing suit too tight. If it weren't her favorite swimsuit she would consider just cutting it off her and being done with it, but she loved this swimsuit even more so now that her and Carter had such a lovely time while she was wearing it. She threw her hands up in a fit of frustration before leaving her room and heading to her father's.

"Dad, I'm having trouble taking this knot out, would you mind helping me?"

It was happening again, these moments came more and more, even with him trying so hard, they still would present themselves. The worst thing about this time was he could do nothing about it, he couldn't power her down and find temporary relief by kissing her. He couldn't do anything at all, but pray that the father in him would overshadow the lustful demon inside of him.

He closed in on her and took the knot of her bikini top into his hand. He fumbled with it for a moment even agreeing that she made a difficult hitch in her swimsuit, but with a little effort the knot was gone and Belle's halter top slid off her shoulders. He lost himself for a moment and pressed his body flush against her, he caved in to the feeling of having her close to him. His breath on her neck sent chills throughout her body and even made her weak. She closed her eyes unable to object to the sensations he was bringing to her body.

"You want to kiss me, don't you?" She whispered.

"I-I-I think I do." He stammered in a loss for words.

She turned around to face him and let her bikini halter fall to the floor. Giving him all sight of the beautiful creation that was his daughter. "Then do it, kiss me," She said giving him permission to her body.

Carter didn't hesitate. He wanted to do this from the moment he got up this morning. He kissed her deeply, his tongue gaining access to her mouth. He cupped her cheeks to touch her somehow to make sure this was real, unable to believe he was finally kissing his daughter and she was kissing him back. Carter was making Belle even weaker, the excitement of her arousal sent moans from her mouth into his, and the vibrations rocket through both of their bodies. Carter backed Belle up until they were on his bed, he sits her down on it, their lips never parting.

"Can I touch you too?" Carter murmured against her lips

"Where do you want to touch me?" She asked with her eyes still closed too overwhelmed by the moment she was in to even care that her father was wanting to touch her.

"In places a father shouldn't want to touch his daughter." He said before opening her legs and placing his hand on the inside of her thigh.

"Okay daddy, touch me there."

Carter uses a skillful hand to snake his fingers around her damp panties and massages her swollen clit, Belle's eyes tighten closed as her father gently strokes her in small circles. Belle was wet as can be, The little android completely at the mercy of her father's soft touches.

"Can I taste my daughter too?" he whispers into her ear before paving kisses along her jawbone. Belle only nodded her consent, she couldn't believe what her father was doing to her. First kissing, then touching, now he was going to taste her, but she wanted this. She wanted to make her father proud and if this would make him pleased, she was more than happy to fulfill his needs in ways she shouldn't. Though it was easy for her, Belle wanted her father too.

She laid back on his bed and he leisurely began to pull her bikini bottoms down her hips and passed her knees before throwing them next to her top. Carter then tucked himself between her legs, letting them rest on his shoulders. He almost considers stopping when he glances back up at his Belle, but she was longing for him too. The curious look she had in her blue eyes told the truth of her desires. He devours her without a second thought, tracing his tongue through her until she trembles in the wake of her pleasure.

She tasted better then he imagined and hearing her moan his name made him wild for her. He flicked her little bud until she was beginning to come undone.

"Daddy what's happening?" She moaned breathlessly.

"You're about to come Belle, just lose yourself." He told her before continuing to use his tongue to lap up his daughter's wetness. Carter takes her clit in his lips lightly teasing her with soft biting. Belle grips the covers on her father’s bed tightly in her hand, screaming out the word daddy into the openness of his room until she felt the white lights of her orgasm jolt through her body.

Carter finishes up between her legs, kissing her softly along her inner thighs until her breathing became steady. Never had he wanted to be so attentive to a woman until this little android came along. Belle brought out something else in him.

"Are you okay sweetheart?" he asked looking up at her from his knees.

She sits up and kisses him, tasting herself on his lips. Carter gets up and lays beside her in the bed. "Yeah, but I feel bad."

Carter sighed to himself, he knew her programming wouldn't let her fall in love with him. After all, He was her father in her mind, the man that raised her since she was a baby, of course she couldn't love him the way he loved her. "So do I, we don't have to do this anymore if you don't want to."

"No, I feel bad that I couldn't make you come."

That surprised him, but in a good way. She wanted him too in more ways than just a father. Perhaps this was a new beginning for the both of them. They created something that wasn't there before, awakened something that laid dormant in both of them for so long. Together they got under the covers and laid there staring longingly into each others eyes until Belle automatically powers herself down for the night and Carter falls asleep soundly next to his android daughter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy December!!!  
> Ok so there should be two questions on your mind after this chapter. This story has turned very philosophical. It wasn't my intent but hey, I'm going to roll with it.
> 
> 1\. In the flashback or Merlin's dream, was Belle alive because she gained consciousness or no because she was created, not born? (after all, shes still an android)
> 
> 2\. What happen to Belle in EnchantedWorld 20 years ago?
> 
> I love to hear your theories!!!


	5. Particular Vices

Regina rolled off the thief, out of breath and completely sated. A layer of sweat coated their skin and a very happy smile was on both of their lips. Out of all the S.H.O.W.S in the park, Robin Hood always pleased her the most.

"How about a round two m'lady?" He asked excitedly in a vague British accent.

Regina groaned, he was good for one thing, talking wasn't it. "No I've got a better idea, how about _you find some rest,_ " Regina commanded.

Robin did as he was told and powered himself down next to Regina, his grayish-blue eyes staring blankly into the room. She got up from her bed and took a shower before getting dressed in her semi- appropriate semi- revealing business attire. Then she steps into her 6 inch heels and grabs her purse to leave. On her way out the door, she stopped in front of a mirror and ran her fingers through her cold black hair, fluffing it out and touching up her blood red lipstick. In the reflection of the mirror she sees Robin laying still in the same position as she left him on the bed. Regina rolls her brown eyes before giving her reflection an approving smile, she was sure to get some stares, all eyes needed to be on her anyway, she had a press conference to go to. She turns the light off leaving Robin staring aimlessly in her dark bedroom.

The crowd was only a murmur until she walked out on stage. The press and fans cheered when the creator of EnchantedWorld appeared. The crowd was in a roar, everyone loved her. She waved to her fans and blew them kisses. It was a front though, what Regina truly care about was the money. She would let the devil himself into her park if it got her a hefty bank account.

"Good evening, EnchantedWorld fans!" She greeted in the podium's microphones to the crowd of over a thousand people, she wasn't nervous, these people were her slaves. "Thirty years ago when I founded the park. I had one goal. To create a land where I would get my happy ending. And so I did. But instead of being selfish and only caring about my happy ending, I wanted to share it." The crowd cheered and chanted her name in rhythm. When the crowd simmered down their praise, she continued. " And I even built a children's section so my son Henry and his friends could have fun there as well and I would have a piece of mind while I entertain my delights."

She knew how to captivate her audience by being uncut and giving them an uncensored speech. Her realness is what got her many of her fans. They believed she didn't judge them, but in reality she just didn't care about them, just about the money the park goers would give her to satisfy their sick fantasies.

"In my world, you find out what kind of person you really are and you're able to indulge in it. We all have a little murderer inside of all of us. That little crazy tempting voice we hear in our heads, I created a world to which you're able to let loose and listen to your inner desires. You can fuck, kill, fight, pillage do whatever you want to the S.H.O.W.S and still be able to rest assure that your children are safe in the kids section of the park." The crowd went crazy again, the spectators chanted EnchantedWorld and she felt like these people were worshiping her. There was only one thing left to address, the naysayers.

"The protesters outside the park, are protesting against our happy endings, the things we were promised from our parents since birth and the same promise we pass down to our children. The real world is sometimes cold and unforgiving, sometimes we aren't given a second chance. But in my world, the possibilities are endless."

Regina smiled and waved again as the crowd basically lost their mind at her speech, now it was time for the part she hated. The media paparazzi. The pestering press. The badgering reporters. They were such a nuisance and their questions were always the same.

"What happened in EnchantedWorld twenty years ago?" One of the reporters asked.

"Yes there was an unscripted incident that happened, but no one was injured." She avoided the question smoothly.

"The incident was said to happen in the children's section, are you at all worried something like this may happen again?" Another female reporter asked. "Should the parents be worried about the safety of their children?

"No not at all." Regina answered quickly to give off any disconcerting vibes. "The children are all safe on the kids side of the park, they can go on all types of fun adventures with the S.H.O.W.S, and learn math and other skills while having fun." She used her favorite go-to line whenever someone tried to accuse the park of not being safe. She scanned the sea of reporters and picked a random journalist for her next question.

"The protesters main concern is that you're allowing criminal acts to take place in your park. Are you worried that maybe EnchantedWorld is enabling people to do lewd things because they're allowed to do anything they want with the S.H.O.W.S since they're not real?"

"Well that's the whole point of EnchantedWorld. You're not able to commit crimes or rape a pretty girl in the real world, so I created a safe environment for our guests to just have fun and live a little without the worries of laws. Because in EnchantedWorld there are no laws." All the reporters raised their hands to be able to ask the next question. "I only have time for one more question." She said before looking through the crowd and picking out another random reporter.

"You've sent some S.H.O.W.S out into the real world, and they seem to be helping a lot of people who are struggling with trauma, is one of your company's future goals to start selling the S.H.O.W.S to the masses?"

"There have only been a handful of S.H.O.W.S we've let out as a beta or a trial run . But I wouldn't say its not a possibility, who knows perhaps in the next decade or so there will be a S.H.O.W in every household."

* * *

Waking up the next morning that joy Carter once had, was gone and now darkness cast itself over his mind instead and blinded him with thoughts he couldn't forget. Although it surprised him in a good way that she wanted him, there was still some fear mixed in. Belle was so inexperienced, he hadn't realize that the scientists created her to the perfect epitome of a teenage girl. She didn't even know what was happening when she was coming. Carter had to explain and tell her how to do it. He thought this was what he wanted, he thought he wanted her in a sexual way. But to turn his daughter into some 1.5 million dollar sex toy wasn't what he wanted. He was confused for a long time, until last night happen. He realize Belle should remain his daughter.

This morning was no different as well, she was still powered off when he woke up first, but soon after he hears Belle take a deep breath, powering herself back up promptly at 8 AM. Belle stretches and yawns her sleep away, and then the urgency to relieve herself quickly follows. She gets up from her father's bed and goes to the bathroom all the while Carter watched her in astonishment. But instead of getting dress and going to wait for her father in the kitchen, she breaks her loop and returns to bed with him.

"Morning dad," she said giving a smile and crawling back under his warm sheets. Belle felt something different about her, she felt more things, learning the world around her.

Gold however wasn't feeling the same bliss she was. He didn't say anything. He was too tortured by her voice screaming his name in his head. He felt like dying, how could he do something so unimaginable to her? Yes, she was a S.H.O.W and technically was not real. But it didn't make him feel any better. The fact was, when he was turning her off she wasn't Belle anymore, just a life size doll. But kissing her while she was awake was a whole different experience. One he would regret.

"So what do you want to do today?" Belle asked before biting her bottom lip.

 _Find some sturdy rope and a high beam._ He thought to himself. But he wasn't really serious. His worst fear was leaving Belle to be alone in the world. He just didn't know what to do about this relationship between them.

"I'm sure you can think of something nice for us to do," Carter suggested.

Belle cuddles up to her father and rests her head on his shoulder and begins to take a moment to think to herself. "I just want to lay here with you a while longer, maybe even- " She trails off. But Carter understood her semantics. What he did to her was opening another field of emotions, she wanted to feel that again, she wanted her senses to be blown apart by him. But that was anything but what Carter wanted to do.

Belle's hands begins to tease him, walking her fingers along his chest before playing with the buttons of his pajama shirt. Carter took a sigh. His body telling him to give in and embrace his desires, and his mind punishing him for taking advantage of her. He took her by the wrist and ended her teasing.

"Belle last night, we shouldn't have done that." He admitted

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I'm supposed to be your father, not some monster violating his princess."

"But you didn't violate me, I wanted to make you proud and I thought-"

Carter cuts her off. "Belle you don't have to do that to make me proud of you. You're my daughter, there isn't any thing you could that would disappoint me."

"But that's not fair, I want it too," Belle whined.

"You don't even know what this is, what I did to you wasn't right." Carter tries to explain.

"I don't care what it is, I liked it and you seem to like it too, why can't-"

He cuts her off by talking again. "Belle that's enough I'm done talking about it, I think you should go to your room." He didn't want to talk about this anymore, but she didn't budge. "Now!"

Belle didn't understand, but she left his room anyways. She didn't like her dad yelling at her. She didn't feel like she did anything wrong, but he said what they did was wrong, but how could it, when it felt so right? It felt right to him too, he just couldn't accept that it was his daughter making him feel this way. He didn't like yelling at her either, but she was so determined to have sex with him again and he didn't want to lose the feeling of having a true daughter.

While getting dressed, he knew that he had to make it up to her somehow, he didn't like to see her sad or angry at him, he know he could fix this by commanding her to forget, but then he would just be solving his problem the easy way and he didn't want her to feel like a robot to him. Instead he wanted her to forgive him. He went to his computer and began looking up some things they could do together as father and daughter. The ballet production of Swan Lake was in town and he thought this would be perfect for them. Belle never mentioned in her false memories of them that she been to a ballet before, he purchased the tickets in hopes that they could create more good memories of them.

"Belle," he called for her at her door frame. She was laying on her bed reading a book.

"Yeah dad?"

"I'm sorry for yelling at you sweetheart, it's just that I want us to get back to the way things used to be."

Belle supposed she could understand, she didn't like seeing her father so torn up and disappointed in himself. She would just have to give up wanting him to be more than her father. How easy that would be for her was undetermined, but she supposed she could if that's what her dad wanted.

"It's okay dad, I know you just want me to be your little girl." She places a bookmark on the page she was reading and closes her book and sits on the side of her bed. "So have you decided what we're going to do today?"

"Funny you should ask, I just purchased us two tickets to see Swan Lake."

"A ballet?" Belle's never been to any live events, this was an adventure she couldn't pass up.

"Yes, wouldn't you like that?"

"Oh dad that sounds like so much fun." She gets up and goes to her closet to see if she had anything suitable for their outing. "Dad I don't have anything formal to wear."

"Not to worry Belle we can go to the mall. I'm sure we can find you something there."

* * *

The smell of fresh dough being baked for hot pretzels, the sound of happy people talking and walking through the mall awakened her senses. She was actually having a good time with her father at the mall. Carter was likewise, he looked just like all the other fathers in the mall with their children, the environment only emerged him deeper into a fatherly role. They made it to the woman's formal clothing store, and Carter let Belle venture off on her own to do some shopping.

"What color do you think I should get?" She asked curiously looking at the different color designer dresses on the circular rack.

"Whatever catches your eye."

"I want my outfit to match yours. What color are you wearing?"

"A black suit with gold accents." Carter's suit was a designer Dolce Gabbana with a tie, cuff links, and pocket squares all gold to match his name.

"Well I can be your accent too." Belle insisted.

"Gold it is then."

They went to the clothing rack filled with little gold cocktail dresses. Belle picked out a gold sequined low cut mini dress made by designer Alexander McQueen. They located the dressing rooms so that she could try the dress on. When she glanced at herself in the dressing room mirror Belle thought she look beautiful, the final step was showing her father to make sure that he approved.

"What do you think?" She asked stepping out of the dressing room, innocently holding her hands behind her back.

Carter's eyes roamed up and down her body mesmerized by her. He was at a loss for words and those goddamn feelings for her were back. He had to do something quickly or risk him taking her into one of the dressing rooms for a closer look at her little dress.

"Lovely dress dear, but you also need shoes." He said, managing to recover nicely from being blown away by her beauty.

Carter called for a store assistant to help his daughter find the right pair of shoes for her dress. The store's sales representative picked out some nice gold pumps that buckled around her ankles and helped Belle try them on.

"What you think of these dad?" She asked kicking her foot out for her father to see.

"They certainly match your dress, are you sure you're going to be able to walk in those?"

Belle gets up feeling wobbly and takes a couple of practice steps, it didn't take her long to figure out how to do it, she took smalls steps placing her heel down first and then her toes. She got the hang of it pretty well and he even told her that she looked and walked quintessential to a model.

They purchased Belle's items and left the clothing store. While walking through the mall Carter bought Belle a warm buttery salt pretzel and a banana and Acai berry smoothie. They sat at the food courts and ate and talk, Carter trying desperately to get back to that father daughter relationship they once shared. He felt like they did, but something was worrying him in the back of his mind. That little golden dress, how was he going to be able to resist her when she had that on? And the heels made it no better, the arch in her back and the way her toned legs looked while she was testing them out sent him reeling for her. But he pushed those thoughts aside and tried to remain firm to the situation.

"Oh dad look at that store." Carter turned his head to see a store called Princess World. A little girl's dream, it was filled with pink and glitter, unicorns and rainbows. He took her inside and let her pick out anything she wanted.

Belle loved being in this store. There were tiaras, and stickers, but what caught her eye the most were the array of stuffed animals. There were so many to choose from. In all colors and sizes.

"Pick out a special friend sweetheart." He said watching her starstruck expression at the toys.

Belle's eyes scanned the shelf filled with Teddy's and all sorts of animals. But there was one in particular that stood out from the rest. She reaches for a sparkly beige teddy bear with ruffled velour fur. He was perfect to her, different from the rest of the cutesy stuff but it still had its own sort of old world charm.

"Give it a name, names hold special meaning, it makes them real," Carter said.

Belle thinks to herself for a moment, holding up the bear and looking at it as if its name would just reveal itself. "He looks like a Rumple to me."

Gold laughed at her choice of name. It was definitely a different name and she was right, his ruffled fur did fit his name. Carter pays for her new friend at the cashier and they leave the mall to return home.

The evening at the ballet was a success. Carter never felt more closer to her as a father then he had in that moment. In the car ride home Belle was retelling her favorite parts of the ballet to him, she complimented the dancers on their grace and how vividly the story of the Swan Queen was told through their movements. Belle even said that perhaps Von Rothbart, the evil magician, wasn't a bad guy and was in love with Queen Odette and out of fear she would find love elsewhere, the sorcerer turned the Queen into a swan and sent the black swan in her place. He even turns her friends into swans so that she wouldn't be alone while at the magical lake. He loved that about her, she  
seemed to always want to find the good in someone even when it wasn't there.

When they came back home, she was sitting on the edge of the bed trying to take off her shoes. She unbuckled the right one with no problem, but the left one was giving her some difficulties. Belle's clothing seemed to always give her a challenge. Now she was having a hard time unbuckling the strap around her ankle. She calls for her dad to help her take off her shoes. Like always, he was there to her rescue.

"Yes sweetheart?"He says entering her room.

"I can't unbuckle this shoe." She said gesturing to the gold shoe she had on.

Carter chuckles before raising his pant legs to kneel on his knees to help her. He takes her foot in his hands, but something came over him, that damn feeling again. He feels the soft skin on her foot as he fumbles with the buckle and it sent chills throughout his body. His hands were too big from the small buckle of her shoes so he put it in his mouth instead and let his teeth do the work for him.

Belle giggles while watching her father wrestle with her shoes in his mouth. She thought it was so funny that her father was so calm and collected at most times and to see him having a hard time with her shoes only made her snicker. Finally the strap was loose enough for him to pull the rest of it from the buckle with the tips of his fingers. He slips off her shoe but, he didn't realize his other hand was on her calf.

He looks up at her, to see that she was biting her bottom lip looking at him wantonly. He could no longer hear that moral voice in his head, only the craving his body felt for her. He leisurely runs his hands up her legs pushing her cocktail dress up around her hips. His warm hands caressing the insides of her thighs. He looks back up to her, using not his words, but his eyes to ask if it was okay.

Belle nodded her consent and he gently rubs her through her soaking wet panties. How was he able to have this effect on her, the man who was supposed to be her father? Unless, there was something more to this, maybe she wanted her father to be her lover.

Carter keeps teasing her through her panties making her even wetter, watching her become motionless and her mouth drop as he made full circles on her clit. Her legs were already on the verge of trembling from the jolts he was sending through her body. He takes her panties by the helm and pulls them gently down her hips.

"Lay back." He tells her and Belle does what she's told, whimpering still at the pleasure his soft touches were giving her. He felt his erection become painfully hard in his pants, his balls aching to empty themselves inside her.

"You want daddy to taste you again?" He asks watching her come undone by him. Her eyes were closed tightly and her back arched off the bed while he rubs her clit.

"Oh yes, please daddy." She moaned out a plea for him to do whatever he wanted to him. Belle was elated this was happening again. From the moment she woke up this morning, all she wanted was for her father to be between her legs again.

"Say it, tell daddy what you want." Carter forcefully told her. He wanted her to call him daddy. If they were going to be lovers he wanted some sense of their father-daughter relationship involved in.

"I want daddy to taste me again."

Carter pulls her closer to the edge of her bed and opens her legs, admiring the work the scientists did on her parts. He then used his tongue to course through her wetness, tracing his path along the walls of his daughter's cunt. She let out moan after moan, as her body inched it's way closer to reaching her peak. Just as she was about to, he stopped.

"Daddy's going to slide his finger inside of you okay?" He tells her in lieu of letting her come just yet.

"Wait daddy, I'm nervous."

That worried him but not enough for him to want to stop. He saw her stuffed bear Rumple sitting next to her pillows. He reaches for it and hands it to his daughter.

"Rumple will protect you." He assured her.

Belle's arms wrapped around her Rumple squeezing it tightly to her chest as he slowly pushes a finger in her little pussy. He doesn't stop, he goes knuckles deep, curling his finger inside her to stimulate her g spot. Belle bit down on her teddy bear's ear to muffle her moans, but some still escape. Carter watches his little girl lose herself to his hands. Carter moves over her to kiss her nose and chin while still pumping his fingers inside her.

"Belle." He whispers in her ear softly. She opened her eyes to see him above her and he dived in for a kiss on her lips. "Do you like what daddy's doing to you, you like daddy's fingers inside of you?"

"Yes." she squeezes Rumple tighter to her chest "Daddy I- I-"

"You what, you're about to come?" He asked

"Yes." She moaned while teetering on the edge of her climax.

"Come for daddy Belle." He said watching her hold on to her stuff bear for dear life as his fingers thrust inside her. He could feel her walls clenching around his fingers as she reaches her orgasm. He kisses her softly along her neck to ease her through it, until her body was done quaking. He takes his fingers out of her before using his mouth to clean them. Her breathing began to steady and she nuzzles her face into Rumple's soft fur. Her dad was right, Rumple did make her feel better and she loved having both of them near her.

"Will you lay with me until I fall asleep?" Belle asked her father.

She didn't have to ask, he was going to anyway. Although what he really needed was a drink. A drink to help him think this through, or maybe forget. But she was more important at the moment, and he refused to leave her. But he made a mental note that he would need to thoroughly think it out and at least talk to her about it.

He loved her more than anything, truly loved her. They shared a kiss one last time just as she powers down for the night, but in that kiss there was something more.

Belle was in the castle again, walking around the long corridors like she did every time she was having the dream. At first, so overcome with fear and grief, she would look for a way to leave. Now since she knew how to wake herself up to escape, she wanted to uncover this mystery behind her dreams. Finally after walking for what seem like forever in the dark castle, she reaches two large doors. She pushes them open bravely and walks through the doors into a great dining hall to see a man spinning at his wheel.

He stops to look at her. _"Hello again Dearie."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the full reveal of Belle's past.  
> Let me know what you think and comment your theories :)


	6. A Modest Little Loop

They had a long excruciating talk, an uncomfortable talk that inevitably led to father and daughter making out. Belle didn't mind that he was her father, she felt something different for him anyways and what they were doing, Belle felt like she'd done it before. But her mind wouldn't allow her to believe that Carter was anything but her father. She fell in love with him, she knew she wasn't supposed to, every fiber in her being including her programming telling her she's not allowed to become intimate with her father. So she unknowingly created new feelings to override her core program.

Carter thought it was strange too that she was able to care about him the way she does, he was sure that the scientists that built her, programmed her not to be attracted to her father, so why was she? He always knew something was different about her, but he thought it was his mind just trying to make Belle seem as real as possible, but this was something he couldn't explain.

Today wasn't like any other day. Belle did not automatically wake up at 8:00 am, she didn't wake up at 8:01 or even at 8:02. Belle broke her loop and woke up close to 9 am, she stretched and yawned, but instead of getting up and getting dressed to meet her father downstairs in the kitchen, she rolls over and falls back to sleep.

Carter walked into the kitchen excited about seeing his beautiful daughter and spending his day with her. He loved being with her, the times they spent together were the moments where he felt like she was real. He pours himself a cup of coffee that was prepared by his automatic coffee maker. He takes a sip and its warmth awakens him fully, but something was off. When he turned back to where Belle is normally sitting, his heart plunges and he drops the coffee mug, causing it to shatter on the floor. She wasn't there. His heart began to race as his mind feared the worst, that she had left, that she'd finally realized what they were doing was wrong and she left him to be alone again. He steps over the mess he made and quickly runs to her room.

Her door was open, which was good because he would have broken it down to find her. She was sleeping in her bed peacefully and Carter took a needed sigh of relief when he saw her. He checks his wristwatch and noticed it was well passed 9 in the morning. He thought it was strange that she was still asleep.

"Belle." he called as he entered her room, but she didn't wake up.

He walked in further and sat next to her on the side of her bed, mesmerized by how beautiful she is, if Carter had known just how lonely he was, then he probably would have gotten a wife S.H.O.W instead, but Belle awoken something else in him, he didn't feel like he was pretending when he was with her, she made him feel like he was actually a father. He playfully tickled her nose while she slept there, but nothing, he wished that she would just wake up like a normal girl, without the use of a verbal command.

"Belle bring yourself back online." He said.

She powers herself back up and stretched and yawned her sleep away to see her father sitting beside her on her bed. "Good morning dad," she said reaching up to give him a warm hug.

"Morning sweetheart," He said holding her tight, he was so relieved that she didn't leave him, that she didn't abandon him. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

She grabbed his wrist to have a look at his watch. "It's 9 in the morning."

Gold chuckled. "Yes I know, but you never wake up this late."

"Well, I think I'm allowed to sleep in some days."

No, no she wasn't. Sleeping in wasn't something she'd been programmed to do and she's never slept past 8 am during the past year. Carter knew something wasn't right and the fact that she couldn't see it herself and error-correct it probably meant something bad.

"Are you feeling okay?" Carter asked.

"I think so." She said kind of downcast, but she didn't want him to worry. Her programming may be limited now but key things like to not disappoint Carter were still enabled. "What do you want to do today?"

Gold wasn't buying that, now he feared that she was broken, Belle's never slept in before because she was programmed to always wake up promptly at 8 am and wait for him in the kitchen, but this was new.

He didn't trust this, his anxiety was already high from when he assumed she was gone. He needed to get to the bottom of this abnormal behavior. "Analysis."

Her cheerful expression faded to a blank stare. Whenever Belle went into her settings menu she felt like she was in a dream. Her eyes stared aimlessly and she would lose her Australian accent, to Carter her menu's voice felt cold and unfeeling.

"Belle tell me the truth, are you feeling okay?" Carter asked to find out what was troubling his daughter.

"I'm sorry, I'm not feeling quite myself today." She said flatly in a standard female's voice.

"Then tell me what's wrong, please so I can fix it." He practically begged he didn't want her feeling bad or anything that wasn't part of her usually bubbly personality. And the worse part was she was trying to keep this information from him so he wouldn't worry.

"I don't feel quite myself today." she repeated.

Carter sighed and was becoming frustrated, she just kept repeating the same thing, her programming keeping her on script, but then he remembered what the scientist told him about her impov mode. That she's able to come off script and speak freely.

"Enter improvisation mode sweetheart." He said cautiously, he hated talking to her like she was a machine.

"Okay." She confirmed.

"Now, why aren't you feeling like yourself today?" He asked nervously.

"Because I'm in love," Belle answered simply. "Have I done something wrong?"

"N-no sweetheart, I'm in love with you too." He said but, he didn't want to admit how much she was scaring him, how could she truly love him, the scientists wouldn't program her to experience true love, especially with the man she believed was her father. And besides, she was off script. "But Belle I don't understand how are you able to love me, I'm supposed to be your father."

"I am unable to answer due to a continuity error." She said staring aimlessly into her room.

"Belle please try to answer," Carter said cupping her cheeks in his hands to force their eyes to meet, but they didn't, she only kept looking past him to nothing in particular.

"I-I, Rum- C-C-C-" She stammered while her eyes blinked quickly trying to answer, but her processing won't allow her to respond to an illogical question.

"Belle?" He grabs a hold to her while she still tries to speak.

"C-C-C-" she stuttered still unable to process, she crashes and powers herself down.

"Belle!" He shakes her in a panic."Belle, please come back online." She doesn't respond, her eyes remain still and cold. "Belle! Belle!"

xox0xox

Merlin was dragging himself into his office, praying that today would go by as quickly as possible. He didn't get much sleep last night, that damn dream made him restless. It was the scariest thing he'd ever witness. Merlin was a scientist and what he saw when Belle gain conciseness was his creation coming to life, she defied all laws of physics and human nature.

"You look a mess Merlin," Ruby commented to her co-worker. "Same dream?"

"Yeah, every year on the same day, it's like clockwork." He said before taking a sip of coffee. "Sometimes I envy the S.H.O.W.S, how they're able to just forget."

"Not all of them." Ruby reminds him.

Belle couldn't, not until they were able to calm her down, and even then they had to remove her from her role as a Princess and rebuild her programming to suit her new role in EnchantedWorld as a Warrior. Eventually, that wasn't even enough to make her forget about him, soon the guest children were beginning to complain that Belle wasn't taking them on the adventures to defeat the Yaoguai, but to save another beast.

"Have you checked in on Rumplestiltskin lately?" Merlin asked his partner.

"Earlier this month," Ruby said while she typed on her computer. "He seems to be content. I think that Baelfire keeps his mind off of her, and since we've created a son for Rumple, the guest children are less afraid of him."

"We should bring him in for study too since we don't have Belle anymore, he was one of the others that turned too."

The office phones begin to ring abruptly interrupting their conversation, Dr. Ruby answered with the facility's standard greeting.

" _Mr. Gold?-_

_You're going to have to calm down,-_

_She's going to be fine,-_

_I'll send a transport to bring her in now."_

Ruby hung up the phone with Mr. Gold. She noticed how frantic he sounded, like Belle had died or something, but of course that was impossible, she was an android, she couldn't die or get sick, but it still amazed Ruby how concern he was for Belle.

"What happen?" Merlin asked.

"I don't know. That was Mr. Gold, he just said Belle's not waking up."

The whole way in the EnchantedWorld's transport van, he stroked her hand and reminded her, and himself, that everything would be okay. Carter couldn't lose her, he needed Belle, he loved her more than anything, and without her, he would be nothing but a man. With her, he was more, he was a father too. He regretted everything, he should have known that asking her those questions would interfere with her programming. His foolish curiosity getting the best of him, the scientists warned him not to use that mode and he did anyway. He begins to fear that he's lost her forever, she was perfect and now she's gone.

She was brought into the facilities on a stretcher and taken straight to her attribute team's examination room. Merlin directs Mr. Gold to the workstation where he was able to watch Belle through a glass window. He was still on edge and his whole body was trembling at the thought of losing her. He watched anyways as the scientists did their diagnostic.

"Okay beautiful, let's see what's wrong." Ruby puts on her goggles that allow her to visually see inside of Belle. All of her mechanics and programmings were shown to her like an x-ray. She see's what the problem is, Belle's programming had been overwritten with new emotions, too many were uploaded at one time and it crashed her programming altogether. "Merlin come see this."

Ruby gives Merlin the glasses to let him look at the enter workings of Belle. He sees the new emotions Belle was experiencing. Intimacy, passion, obsession. "I didn't write these emotions into Belle's new daughter personality."

"I know." The corners of Ruby's lips rose slightly. "She's doing it again." They both looked at Belle who was still powered down, staring absentmindedly in the room.

Merlin still had some doubts, he was a scientist so of course he was skeptical about certain illogical things."Ruby, she's in a whole new role, how-"

"You can't be seriously still asking those questions," Dr. Ruby cuts him off, "After 20 years you know how, Belle is alive."

"But how this time, last time it was from grief when she lost Rumple, what's caused it this time?"

"The love she has for her father." They turned to Carter who was worriedly pacing the floor just on the other side of the glass window that separated the workstation from the examination room. Perhaps its was possible that a connection was made, strong enough between Belle and Carter for her to upload emotions out of nowhere.

Merlin was truly blown away by all this. He was having a small existential crisis and he needed to say the words out loud because his brain wasn't letting him process it and it made him feel light headed. He believed there was a reason behind everything, after all, he was a scientist, "I created her right here in this lab, every detail of her mind I built, so how is she learning all these new emotions?"

"She uploaded them, maybe to them that's what learning is," she could see that he was still so doubtful, even after everything he'd seen. She supposed that was the difference is between doctors and scientists. They needed a logical explanation, but this time there wasn't one. "How many times are you going to have an existential crisis, until you realize it. Belle is alive, the S.H.O.W.S are able to gain consciousness."

"But -but this goes beyond all logic." Merlin managed to say.

"I know, this is fucking insane, we created a life," Ruby said in just as much awe as her colleague. "So what do we do now?"

"We let her go back to where she wants to be," Merlin said. If Belle was alive, then she has free will and Merlin wasn't the type of person to keep her where she doesn't want to be just to study her like she was a science project.

"And what about these new emotions, should I reconfigure her back to her original programming?" Ruby asked.

"No, if she wants these emotions, let her have them, Besides if we take them away, she'll just upload them again." Merlin knew she was unraveling, soon she'll be fully awake so she needed to feel and make mistakes just as any other human being would.

Ruby pulled out her computerized tablet and begins to update her bulk apperception. She increased it so Belle would be able to process and handle all these new emotions she was experiencing without overloading and crashing.

"Okay Belle, good as new," She smiled at Belle and she remembered that faithful day when she first woke up, it scared her too, it was the same day Ruby had her first existential crisis, where she even questioned her very own existence, but she came to the conclusion that the S.H.O.W.S were no different from them, they were created just as humans were. "Bring yourself back online Belle."

"Hello," Belle said before sitting up straight on the stretcher. She looked around her surrounding and became nervous, she didn't know where she was, but the room felt familiar and she knew she hated this place, but it frightens her more when she couldn't locate Carter."Where's my father?"

Carter's eyes lit up when he saw her wake up, he bolted from the workstation and into the examination room where she was.

"Belle." He said rushing inside the room. She jumps off the table and ran to him, Carter picked up her into his embrace, he was so happy to have her back and acting like her normal self again. He couldn't hold back the tears of joy that leaves his eyes. She was so warm now and full of life. "Are you okay Belle?"

"Yes I'm okay, can we go home now?" She asked her father.

"Yes, yes let's get you home." He said placing his suit coat around her shoulders, he's so relieved to have his daughter back.

Ruby watches the touching moment and even feels teary eyed herself. They really loved each other and Ruby was happy Belle was with someone who truly cared about her. It only made her feel bad about all the rest of the S.H.O.W.S in the park. Especially the ones in the adult section who were being raped and murdered on a daily basis just to be reset and do it all over the next day. The only solace she had, was that she was able to make the S.H.O.W.S forget, she was happy that Belle was one of the ones that got away. But just maybe there was a way to help them all.

"Thank you so much," Carter said shaking Dr. Ruby's hand.

"No, it's us who should be thanking you," Ruby said smiling.

Gold didn't know what she meant by that, but he was just so happy to have Belle back that he didn't even care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and commenting  
> I'm so happy you're enjoying,  
> let me know what you think  
> [Here's the Tumblr](http://poca-staks.tumblr.com/)  
> -RL


	7. This World is Madness

Even before EnchantedWorld opened their doors back in the year 2060, it had gained enough publicity to be considered one of the world's most sought after attraction. Inside the park, the environment was designed to look and feel like one was actually in the renaissance era. The sounds of music being played on harps and boisterous timpanis' filled the large peasant town of MistHaven, the innermost city of EnchantedWorld. Familiar smells of cooked mutton and dried meat attacks the senses putting one's mind in a daze and it would actually smell like the 1300's. The S.H.O.W.S even dressed in the appropriate time period clothing and even the Guests would as well to stay immersed and make the experience feel real as possible.

It was an amusement park no doubt, but it was also much more. The company improved on their older designs of animatronics and created them to be lifelike. The S.H.O.W.S weren't these cold robots like being. They looked and were able to think like a human being through advanced coding and programming from an expert engineer in Biometrics. Their coding included their personality, their ability to make choices and the most important thing, their coding made them unable to kill a living being, or even fight to defend themselves.

Years went into designing the S.H.O.W.S, even before Regina Mills was born, her mother Cora was advancing the technology that is being used today within the park. Her mother died before her life's work was completed, but EnchantedWorld had its destiny to open.

When the park opened its doors thirty years ago, even then the public didn't know what to expect, but once inside the park it felt like one was re-born, a new person, the person you wanted to be, but couldn't because of morals or laws. The objective of EnchantedWorld was to satisfy one's need for adventure and excitement by going on thrilling escapades with the S.H.O.W.S. The Guests could go on adventures with Prince Charming to help him wake his sleeping princess from an evil sorceress. Or save Cinderella from her evil step mother and get her to the ball. If a Guest wanted to play the villain, they could. Whoever they wanted to be, Dr. Mills allowed the Guests free range to do whatever they desired in the park.

But that wasn't enough to curve the Guests' appetite. The S.H.O.W.S were beautiful, the EnchantedWorld staff made them very desirable. So the Guests began pandering to their baser instincts of violence, sex, and gratuitous self- gratification. The S.H.O.W.S went day by day in their modest loops, only to be disrupted by rich antsy park goers that wanted to fuck and pillage them like savages.

Some were never gentle with them.

 _So, they're not real_ was the favorite line the park goers liked to use. To prove to other people they weren't a sick individual for going to a theme park to rape an android, or mass murder some S.H.O.W.S without blinking an eye or even feeling bad about it. A lot of park goers would go broke trying to satiate their desires in the park. A day in EnchantedWorld wasn't cheap. A couple of hundreds would only get someone a wrist band to stay 12 hours. If a Guest was rich enough, some would stay weeks at a time, only to become lost in their delusion, wishing that EnchantedWorld's reality would stick. When security finally threw them out, the real world didn't feel real anymore and most committed suicide from the withdraw symptoms of EnchantedWorld.

For 30 years, over and over again, the Guests would come. And for 30 years the S.H.O.W.S were reset over and over again, their memory wiped clean, leaving only vivid lucid dreams and nightmares of their violent encounters. So when the company began receiving reports of the S.H.O.W.S showing visual indicators of insanity, Regina would recall said S.H.O.W for a tune up. If the diagnostic showed they couldn't be fixed, they were incinerated. A living being destroyed like garbage.

"I know that look Ruby," Merlin said walking out of the examination room with Dr. Lucas. "You're thinking way too hard about something you shouldn't be."

"We have to do something," She finally said."If the S.H.O.W.S are becoming conscience and waking up, we can't let them live like this."

Merlin pulled her into their workstation, away from listening ears. If someone at the facility heard them speaking like that, they would be undoubtedly reported. "And what do you propose we do. Liberate them from EnchantedWorld?"

"Merlin we have to do something, think about what the Guests do to them." She said.

"That's why we erase their memories Ruby, it's all we can do to help." Merlin tried to explain. He understood what Ruby was feeling, but the fact still remained, the S.H.O.W.S belonged to Regina.

"But it's not helping anymore. If Belle can remember, so can the others." Ruby said. "Have you ever stop to think that maybe the reason the S.H.O.W.S are going insane is because of what the Guests do to them."

"So what would you do huh?" Merlin said sarcastically. "Send them out into the real world, have them coexist with the same beings who torture them while in the park?"

"No, but maybe we can talk to Regina. They can live in the park, under our protection." Ruby tries to explain to her colleague. "EnchantedWorld needs to be shut down."

"Listen to yourself Ruby," He stood up angrily in frustration. "This is Regina were talking about. The woman practically bathes in the money EnchantedWorld brings. She would never close down the park."

"We have to a least try." She said, she wished she could make him understand how serious this was. "Goddamn it Merlin, I can't live knowing that the guests are abusing and tormenting a conscience being to the brink of insanity, then we destroyed them like livestock." She sighs. "There has to be something we can do."

Merlin knew she was right, and the S.H.O.W.S were coming in more frequently exhibiting signs of insanity. He calls to mind the S.H.O.W Peter Pan. Peter was one of the first to be driven into madness. He was only a boy, the guests tortured him relentlessly because he was a villain in one of the adventure narratives or "Stories". He had died at least a thousand times and EnchantedWorld kept resetting Peter and clearing him to return to the park. One day he snapped, begin talking to himself, going off his loop and murdering other androids. Now Merlin realized why, he was alive and he was tired of being abused. They recalled Peter Pan and then he was incinerated, only because he was trying to protect himself.

"Robin," Merlin said, but it was meant to stay in his thoughts.

"Who?"

"Robin Hood, he's Regina's favorite," Merlin explains. "Maybe if we wake him up, Regina will see that the S.H.O.W.S are alive. Maybe you'll get what you're asking for."

xox0xox

Belle was an anomaly. She was a perfect imperfection and his love for her grew every day. He began to stop worrying about why she was able to love him and began to appreciate the fact that she could. They spent every day together, and everyday Carter felt like she was opening up more.

He made her feel amazing, inside and outside the bedroom. Carter always made sure to remind her that she was all that mattered in his life and his love was so passionate, which was probably the reason why they became intimate. He was capable of reaching into her very soul and pulling something that lay dormant there for so long, she was becoming less concern about him being her father, the deeper they fell in love.

"Did you like that princess?" he asked, while he helped her pull up her panties.

"I loved it." She said slightly breathless and heavily sated. "Just as I love you."

Carter chuckled lightly before lying beside his daughter, transfixed on her beauty and ocean blue glow in her eyes.

She rakes her fingers through his hair, pushing some strand of his hair from his face. "Why don't we ever take things further?"

He sighed, that was a question he asked himself over and over, only now while looking into her eyes does he have his answer. "Because I'm afraid I won't be able to return back to being your father."

Belle giggled and kisses her father. "But you're more than my father, you're my lover too."

"I shouldn't be," Carter confesses to her. "And it's probably the reason you're able to wake up without a command because I'm making you shift between roles." He said,

It was an illogical statement so he knew Belle would overlook it, but it felt good to voice his concerns out loud to her even though she wouldn't be able to understand, or so he thought.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked, cocking her head to one side curiously, placing a hand on his chest.

"By what sweetheart?"

"That I'm able to wake up without a command." She answered, her eyes filled with wonder.

"I thought you weren't supposed to notice things like that." His eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Why wouldn't I?" She asked, trying to understand the baffled look on his face. It was the same look the young man named Killian gave her when he mentioned she shouldn't have a father. "You know dad lately I've been having these dreams-"

"Dreams?" He inquired, human beings have dreams, not S.H.O.W.S.

"Yes about me being a princess, or warrior, or something- something other than actually me- me now." She tried to explain to him, though she fails to mention she was also dreaming about a strange man as well.

His eyes were focused on her trying to make sense of what she was saying, but he couldn't, all he saw while staring into her eyes was his daughter. He pulled her in for a hug and nuzzled his face into her neck. "You're so different, Belle."

"I don't mean to be."

"It's hardly your fault, it's probably mine." He said. Carter felt like the things he was doing with her were forcing her out of her role as his daughter.

They lie there for a moment more, both of them were wrapped in deep contemplation. Gold's was more regretful of what they've become. How was he supposed to keep up this father-daughter relationship when they were being sexual, what would happen if he did take that next step, how deeper will he fall? While Belle's was more reflective, things weren't making sense, and if she didn't ask questions, she feared she may drift into the madness she was skirting on the edge of.

"What's EnchantedWorld?" She asked, but he didn't answer, only looked at her with a freaked out expression before climbing out of bed, almost like he was scrambling to get away from her. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because you're scaring me." EnchantedWorld was the place she was made, she's not supposed to ask any questions that would make her suspect she wasn't a real human girl.

"Scaring you, but dad I only asked a question."

"Yes but it's the question you asked." He told her. "You're not supposed to know about EnchantedWorld because of- of-"

"Because of what?" She asked

"Because of what you are."

"Then what am I?" Belle asked, feeling the unnerving sensation of deja vu.

Belle was fully sentient.

She was questioning her very existence and who she was. Carter was speechless and incapable of finding the right words to explain to her, but his curiosity got the better of him. He leaves the room for a moment leaving Belle with an uneasy feeling. The deja vu she was experiencing was getting stronger, she felt like she has asked that same question before, and never got her answer. When Carter returns, he's holding a brochure.

He gives her the leaflet hesitantly, he didn't want her crashing again from this illogical paradox he was presenting her. "This is what you are. EnchantedWorld's the place you were built."

Belle looks down at the booklet and begins to flip through the pages. There were pictures of people, but they weren't really people, they were machines. She reads that they're designed by carving and casting a human sculpture from synthetic material. After design, a programmer has coded a specific role for the newly built android. Next is beta testing, where a behaviorist monitors the S.H.O.W.S for a duration of time to make sure they're ready to be cleared and implemented into the park.

Carter watches Belle read through the pamphlet. What she was reading about was normal to him, S.H.O.W.S have been around for more than 30 years now, however they never questioned their own existence. He wasn't understanding, Carter had been to EnchantedWorld many times but none of them were able to think the way Belle was thinking, it was almost as if she was aware.

"A Synthetic Human Object with Stories." She finally said. "So – so you're trying- you're telling me I'm not real."

"No sweetheart, you're real to me. You're my daughter and you'll always be." He said sitting down next to her to comfort her.

She didn't know whether to cry or to scream. What her father, or whatever he was to her, showed her turned her whole world upside down. Everything she was, was built by people she never knew. How was what he was saying even possible, but at the same time made so much sense. Belle always felt different, like she wasn't truly the person she was. But she had no idea she was an android. This couldn't be real.

Belle picks up Carter's hand and places it against her cheek. "We feel the same."

"We are the same." He said, cupping her cheek in his hand.

"Then how can you tell?" She questioned, looking at him with those curious blue eyes that compelled him to want to answer all of her questions.

"You were made, and I was born. You will never age, you'll never suffer from sickness." He tells her. "Belle, you'll never die."

"But if I won't age then how am I seventeen?"

"The scientists programmed you to think you are seventeen, but you were built over 30 years ago."

Built? She shook her head in disbelief, a strong bout of light-headedness was overwhelming her. It just didn't make sense, how could she never age but still remember being younger? "No, that's not true. You adopted me, I have memories of you as my father since I was a little girl."

"It's all in your programming the scientists uploaded you with. Sweetheart, you were never a little girl and we've only truly known each other for a little over a year."

"You're lying," She screamed. "Stop trying to scare me.

"I'm not Belle." He promised.

"Yes you are! You're lying to me, I thought you loved me." She cried, words crumbling as were her feelings.

"I do sweetheart and It's because I love you that I'm telling you the truth." He flips the pages of the booklet to a picture of her.

"Wha-" She gasped. "is that me?"

She was wearing a yellow ball gown, like the one from her dreams. She was smiling and looking happy, like this Belle enjoyed living in her warped reality. Belle was creeped out seeing herself like this outside of her dreams. It was surreal, she was having a hard time distinguishing what was real from what was fake.

"I believe you were one of the first ones they created using the new design, they would advertise you a lot."

"So why tell me all this, why not keep living in your perfect little world with your daughter?" She asked, all of her pain and anger, were in her words.

"I don't know, you're so different from the rest of them." He tells her, lost in his own confusion, but still looking at her with so much adoration. He saw her pain, and felt the anguish she was going through, but it was just so astounding to him that she was unable to overlook this paradox and that she was even questioning it, like a real human being. "I don't know how you're able to think the way you do, but honestly I'm amazed, it's like- like you're alive."

This was a lot for her to take in, to realize that her whole life was a lie. What did she do to deserve this? She looks down at the booklet again and reads: _In EnchantedWorld, Guests are given the right to indulge, the S.H.O.W.S are designed to please the Guests most carnal desires_. Belle only existed to gratify the needs of others.

"So everything I know, everything I am is a lie," She said, voice breaking as she spoke. "A fake life that someone put in my head"

He nodded sadly.

"But why," Belle asked, although Carter didn't answer, but she took a guess anyways. Hell, the companionship she and Carter had wasn't even a true father and daughter scenario, they were intimate with each other. "Let me guess, it's so that you can fulfill your twisted fantasy of having sex with your daughter." She cried out.

"What, Belle of course not-"

"Then why did you want me?" She asked.

He looks down pathetically, afraid to tell her the truth while looking into her eyes. "I wanted a daughter."

She sighs, even though Belle didn't know who she truly was, she knew that Carter loved her. She knew it wasn't his fault, and he never did anything wrong to her. Even when they became intimate, Belle wanted Carter sexually too. "I think you were lonely. Any man would be."

He nodded.

She hands Carter back the pamphlet. "Show me."

"I've shown you everything."

"Take me to EnchantedWorld."

"Belle I can't. If I take you there and they hear you questioning things like this, they may take you away from me and I can't lose you."

"I have to go, and if you won't take me I'll figure out a way to go by myself."

There was no way he was going to let her off into the world alone, so he agrees. "But why?"

She looks up at him. She loved her Carter, but she knew he wasn't able to answer all her questions. He couldn't explain the dreams she's been having of a dying man or even who the man was.

"I want to meet my maker."


End file.
